


Follow Your Shame

by atrata



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-06
Updated: 2008-06-06
Packaged: 2017-10-08 05:41:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/73287
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/atrata/pseuds/atrata
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how many times they dance, she'll never sleep with Tony Stark.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow Your Shame

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Дорогами стыда](https://archiveofourown.org/works/11986131) by [fandom_All_Avengers_and_MCU_2017](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fandom_All_Avengers_and_MCU_2017/pseuds/fandom_All_Avengers_and_MCU_2017)



**one.**  
She smells like Tony. It's not surprising, really, but Pepper's never had reason to notice before. Now, though, there's a sobbing girl in her arms and Pepper is trying to be comforting, sort of. Most of Tony's women get what they deserve (or they get what they want; Pepper's not innocent enough to believe none of them are using him), and Pepper doesn't even blink when she kicks them out of Tony's house, Tony's room, Tony's bed.

This one, though, is a little on the young side, a lot on the naive side, and Pepper opens her arms and rolls her eyes and says, "Look, he's just a jerk. Don't let him get to you." She even mostly means it. The girl cries harder.

When she kisses Pepper, giant alarm bells go off -- ISSUES ISSUES ISSUES, they scream -- and Pepper means to pull away gently and send the girl on her way. But she tastes like whiskey and sex and Tony, and Pepper licks it all out of her mouth.

**two.**  
Pepper has never thought of herself as an idiot, but she seems to be proving herself wrong. She doesn't know what she's doing, why she's doing it, or even how it keeps happening; she just knows that it does. She never pushes them, never makes the first move, but somehow it gets easier, goes farther, and eventually she's fucking them in a bed still damp with Tony's sweat.

Jarvis never says anything.

**three.**  
There are some things Pepper knows. Actually, there are a lot of things Pepper knows, and one of them is that no matter how many times they dance, she will never sleep with Tony Stark. Tony has relationships with robots, not women, and maybe Pepper is frighteningly efficient with her Blackberry, but she deserves more.

Still.

Sometimes Pepper wants it. She can ignore it and deny it and hide it, but she never manages to kill it. She hates herself for this, a little -- not for wanting to get laid, but for thinking Tony would be different with her -- but it doesn't seem to matter.

Other things Pepper knows include the way he sounds in bed; she's walked in on him enough times by now that she can recognize it all: the way he sighs when the foreplay's over and he finally slides into a woman's body, the way his voice changes when he's close to coming, the hoarse moan when he finally gets what he wants. The bodies change, but those noises never do.

And maybe she can't sleep with him, but she can play those noises in her head and look at those bodies for herself, can trace the route his fingers took, can bite the skin he's bitten, can mix her sweat with his. She can fist her hands in hair he's pulled, can lick his come from between wet thighs.

She can hear him and smell him and taste him and feel him and really, what else is there?

**four.**  
Here is another thing Pepper knows: she is very, very screwed up.

**five.**  
She's pretty sure Tony knows something is going on. He calls her earlier in the mornings to clean up his room, and when they pass in the hallway (that part's new, too), she can feel his eyes on her back as she tugs on the bedroom door. She's wet before it gets a chance to close.

'Pretty sure' changes to 'entirely sure' when he comes up behind her one morning as she's making coffee. He stands too close, puts a hand on either side of her hips, and traps her against the counter. She can feel his heat behind her, and her heart only pounds like this when he staggers home with the suit in pieces. He bends his head to her neck and she closes her eyes, and he smells like Tony and so does she, and they stand there, just breathing, until the coffee's ready. It is the slowest pot of coffee Pepper has ever made.

The coffee finishes, and before Tony moves away, he leans in closer. His voice is low and a little rough when he says, "How'd it go?" and Pepper just wonders how long he's known.

**six.**  
There are cameras in his bedroom, and Pepper stops turning them off when the women start looking like her. It's gradual but noticeable; they're taller, paler, all long legs and red hair and light freckles. Pepper would wonder where on earth he finds them all, but she doesn't much care. She's more concerned with what he's trying to tell her.

Normally, she's good at this; her job depends on being able to read him and anticipate him, and she's very good at her job. Unfortunately, she left "normal" three states back and is more than a little lost.

Her one consolation is that it's obvious Tony's lost, too. The fact that she even thinks of it as "consolation" tells her something, makes her feel like an awful human being. He drinks too much and tries to kill himself in that suit, and she's sleeping with his women while he watches from the shop, and the best thing would be for her to quit.

She doesn't.

**seven.**  
It turns out, she doesn't have to. Tony does it for her. He just stops bringing home women one day, and Pepper isn't actually sure how she feels about that. It wasn't a good routine, obviously, but it was a routine, and Pepper likes routines.

She finds him one morning passed out in the shop, on a cot he got from God knows where, still in his jeans and greasy t-shirt. She watches him for a few minutes, sets his coffee on the floor by his phone, and turns to go.

"Pepper." His voice is sleep-roughened and exhausted, and something about it makes her stomach clench. She stops in her tracks and doesn't turn around.

"Pepper," he says again. "There isn't anyone else."

  
**FIN.**   



End file.
